Christmas at Claridge's

by Karen Swan

  The waiter came over to take their wine order, squeezing Chiara’s shoulder in friendly recognition as he passed. Gabriel ordered as the girls leaned in to chat.

  ‘So, what’s it like living in paradise then?’ Stella asked.

  Chiara smiled. ‘It doesn’t seem like paradise when you live here all the time. It is just normal.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so pretty. All these distressed colours and cute balconies.’

  ‘It is so small, though. Only five hundred and thirty people live here full-time.’

  ‘Really?’ Stella grimaced. ‘God that’s . . . that’s probably fewer than live on the Portobello Road, don’t you think, Clem?’

  Clem shrugged. ‘Maybe, I don’t know.’

  ‘Tch, you’d go mad, babes. Way too small for you. I mean, if you estimate that only half of those are men and half of them are either under twenty or over sixty.’ She shook her head. ‘With your twelve-week rule, you wouldn’t get past more than a few years before running out.’

  Clem looked nervously at Gabriel, who was still talking to the wine waiter about the top notes of a merlot, then she glared back at Stella to shut up.

  ‘What is the twelve-week rule?’ Chiara asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Stella said quickly, realizing she’d overstepped the mark. ‘Ignore me. I’m . . . I’m trying to quit smoking and it’s making me ratty.’

  Chiara placed her hand on Clem’s. ‘By the way, I want to say thank you for looking after Luca yesterday. He had such a good time. He could not stop talking about the games you played. And you took him to the wishing tree on the boat? It is his favourite place!’

  ‘Yeah? That was more luck than judgement,’ Clem said modestly, aware that Gabriel had rejoined the conversation and that it would only add weight to his comments last night.

  ‘Well, he loved it.’

  Clem nodded non-committally, but Chiara continued to stare. ‘So, I wanted to ask . . . maybe you would think to have him again. My aunt is very sick; she had a – how you say? – a strike?’

  ‘A stroke? Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘She is eighty-three.’ Chiara shrugged. ‘But my family, we think we can look after her at home.’

  ‘Well, that’s wonderful.’

  ‘My day is Tuesday.’

  ‘That’s cool, I’ll have him for you next Tuesday. No worries,’ Clem replied, emboldened by yesterday’s success.

  ‘No, I mean . . . it is all the Tuesdays.’

  Clem blinked. ‘You mean you’re going to Bologna every Tuesday? And you want me to . . .?’

  Chiara nodded. ‘Please, Clem. There is no one else I can ask and I cannot afford the nanny. Rafa is away and it would not be good for Luca to see her so sick.’

  ‘No, no of course not,’ Clem said quickly, wanting to ask where it was that Rafa was disappearing to every Tuesday.

  ‘He really likes you,’ Chiara said quietly.

  Clem met her gaze. ‘I really like him.’

  ‘So that is a yes?’ she asked, her big brown eyes wide with hope.

  Clem shrugged. What else could she say? ‘Sure. Why not?’

  She saw Stella smirk and sit back in her seat, satisfied that if the lack of a party scene didn’t send her screaming back to London, a summer of babysitting would.

  The waiter came over with the wine and began pouring, but Stella put her hand over her glass.

  ‘I promise, it is very good this wine,’ Chiara said encouragingly. ‘The vineyard is only thirty miles from here.’

  ‘It’s not that; I just can’t drink anything for a while,’ Stella said, looking over at Clem with a delighted smile. ‘Y’see, I’m having a baby.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Clem stood at the window, watching Luca show off his ‘keepy-uppy’ skills to the workmen, who were taking a break. He was past fifty already, trying to break his record of eighty-four, his tongue poking through his bright-white teeth in concentration.

  She smiled to see him hold the group of grown men in his thrall. She wasn’t scared of him any more. He was no longer A Child; he was Luca, footballer and trickster extraordinaire, and they had quickly forged a bond based precisely on those attributes. She had even begun to look forward to their Tuesday adventures now – they had had four more since Stella had returned home – having diving competitions in the cove and shootouts with the plasterers at lunch; he took her up the mud tracks that ran through the steep woods at the back of the port, showing her the best olive trees to scrump, the best place to sit and watch the dolphins (after which the Romans had named the port), the massive water tank with its rotten, rusted, half-broken lid, where the local children liked to throw stones. He had, at her bidding, acquired a taste for marmalade; while she had, at his, acquired a taste for black olive spread; and they both had an addiction for the almond cornetti from the bakery on the back street. Their days were long and too often they lost track of time, but Rafa said nothing now when she returned Luca, exhausted, to him at the hotel. His scowl said enough.

  A collective, consoling moan brought her attention back to the antics in the garden. Seventy-six. The men were patting Luca on the back and scruffing his hair. Rafa wasn’t among them. He couldn’t afford to stop for breaks, not now that he’d agreed to work on the mural in the green room, or rather the garden suite as it had become known.

  Liaising only with Chad, who knew better than to ask why he was being used as a go-between, he had agreed to paint it in as a spring garden, with pale mists and tight buds and lone songbirds hidden in the leaves. Clem messaged back, through Chad, that she didn’t want anything too bright or ripe, she wanted a scheme that had a wispy, tentative, almost melancholy beauty, a mood that was about promise and suggestion; a room like an early morning.

  In the evenings, before Gabriel came home, Clem would stand in the room alone and try to decipher where he’d worked, her eyes searching for some new added depth and shade or layered light, as he slowly brought the pencil sketch into a three-dimensional dreamscape.

  It was slow going as he was still reinstating the trompe l’oeils on the exterior – a huge job in itself and too specialized to delegate: the pitfall, as well as the advantage, of being a one-man band – but Clem had noticed the colour washes only built up on the days when she was safely out of the house in Viareggio. Another slight directed at her.

  She walked back to her desk, trying to push it out of her mind. She had bigger concerns than that to dwell upon today. She flicked through the iPad once more, chewing on her lip nervously as she swotted up – again – on the technical details. The library was ready and waiting to be clad in its new skins, the first shipment of which – the leather shelf-sleeves – had just arrived and Chad was out on the drive, checking through the inventory.

  Adrenaline shot through her in cold, chilling bursts. This was it, the first day in this warped, inverted summer where everything came back to Alderton Hide. It was the nub of why she was officially here, everything else that was swirling around her – Gabriel, the house, the boat, the small matter of walking among her own ghosts – peripheral to the one simple fact that this was all for Tom.

  It had been one thing playing at being the designer with colour charts and wallpaper swatches, getting Chad to draw up her ideas in his intricate Slade-quality watercolour illustrations. He had been right, she did have an instinct for it, and in spite of her misgivings, she had slipped into the role easily, surprising herself most of all, almost every day of the past two months that she’d been here. They were steadily honing the house to her vision, building it back up after months of picking at its bones; but from this point, this day, onwards, the work was technical, intricate, artisanal, skilled. Every single leather fascia had been quality-checked back at the factory for grains and stains, then custom-dyed, hand-cut and hand-stitched. But if a single measurement was out by even half an inch, if the leather wrinkled or bubbled, if the hot glue seeped and stained through the seams, if the tens of thousands of pounds’ wor
th of bespoke work was ruined in any way . . . it was on her.

  She started pacing, feeling nauseous with nerves. Instinct told her to stall. She was in charge when she had no right to be, when she had never asked to be. Gabriel had simply had his agenda, while Tom had his own.

  She wanted to hear her father’s voice. He would be able to calm her down with one of his impassioned soliloquies on his newest culinary discoveries. She had rung home several times since their aborted phone call in the tunnel, but it had always gone to voicemail and she’d been left wondering whether she’d been premature in thinking forgiveness had been granted with the safe return of the Birkin. Certainly she hadn’t heard hide nor hair from Tom.

  She dialled the number and walked to the window, staring out at the gardens, the phone to her ear, her fingers drumming her thigh nervously. It went to voicemail again.

  She stabbed disconnect with a furious finger. ‘For God’s sake, Dad! Just pick up!’

  ‘They’re away again.’

  Clem whirled on her heel, her jaw dropping open in horror at the sight of Tom standing in the doorway – horror that he was actually there; horror at the state of him. He had lost weight – a lot of weight – and his shirt bagged loosely around his chest while his jeans were a size too big. It made him seem taller, his eyes bigger. And he had cheekbones now, too, sharp ones that seemed hard and out of place on such a wholesome, soft face. ‘Thought I should probably look in,’ he mumbled with ridiculous understatement, his head jerking towards the shipment on the drive.

  ‘Tom!’ she cried. ‘You look awful.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She carried on staring at him in open dismay. ‘What the hell’s happened?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look it! There’s only half of you left.’

  ‘Well, my better half then, hopefully.’ He walked towards her, his tic fidgeting madly in his left cheek. He stopped a couple of feet away. ‘I was really shitty to you, Clem.’

  ‘No!’ she shook her head manically fretting at the sight of him. ‘No, you weren’t. I deserved all of it. I was totally selfish, a complete loser.’

  ‘I pretty much blackmailed you, Clem,’ he said quietly, his cheeks stained a mottled pink. He swallowed and looked down. ‘I was so angry . . .’

  ‘As you had every right to be! You almost lost everything because of me.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I couldn’t see past my own needs. I jeopardized everything, all because Josh was talking to another girl? When I look back, I can hardly believe it. I was . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Pathetic.’

  Tom watched her. ‘You look amazing.’

  ‘Do I?’ she asked, surprised, looking down at her khaki silk cargo shorts and charcoal vest, sunglasses pushed back in her ponytailed hair and feather lariats swinging at her neck.

  ‘In fact, you actually look happy,’ he said, indicating her bright, hopeful eyes.

  ‘Well, I am now you’re talking to me again. I felt like I’d lost my right arm.’

  He blinked, his eyes suddenly watery. ‘Me, too.’

  Clem threw her arms around him, hardly able to bear the sadness in his face. It had been so long since she’d seen her happy-go-lucky brother. ‘Oh, Tom! I’ve missed you so much. I’ve got so much to tell you.’

  ‘And me you.’

  Clem pulled away and looked back at him. Something in his voice told her his news wasn’t as uplifting as hers. ‘You first.’

  ‘Well, you can probably guess,’ he mumbled, one foot shuffling at the dust that had collected on the parquet floor. ‘Clover dumped me.’

  ‘She dumped you?’ Clem answered incredulously.

  Tom nodded.

  ‘But why?’

  He looked down, his lips drawing into a thin pale line. He was quiet for a long time, then he shrugged, looking more like ten than thirty, and it reminded her of Luca’s face that first day on the boat as he stared at the wishing tree: both of them boys with wishes that weren’t coming true.

  ‘Obviously, I took the flat off the market once we’d signed the contract for this job, as there was no need to sell it any more—’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, she took it badly, Said it was a clear sign I wasn’t ready to commit to her, that I never would.’

  ‘But . . . but you selling the flat was never about you committing to her anyway. She said that herself. It was a clear-cut case of releasing equity into the business. Even I understood that.’

  ‘I think she hoped—’

  ‘Oh I know she hoped!’ Clem couldn’t help herself from saying.

  He was quiet for a second. ‘On top of that, I’ve been doing crazy hours at the office, what with this job becoming so much bigger than we first realized. I just needed to stabilize the business, you know?’

  ‘I so do!’ Clem said loyally, clutching his arm.

  ‘She just . . . flipped.’ He shrugged again. ‘Said she needed time to think.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago.’ He shifted weight uncomfortably and Clem knew there was more. She tipped her head to the side, waiting for it as Tom sighed. ‘I think there might be someone else.’

  Clem’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who?’

  He shrugged. ‘She didn’t say; just that she knew someone who was only too ready to give her what she wanted if I wouldn’t.’

  Clem listened carefully, a lot less convinced by Clover’s rhetoric than her brother. There were less territorial Middle Eastern states than Clover. It was a bluff and she knew it. Clover was banking on him falling apart without her, which, given the state of him, he clearly was, so that when they reunited, it would be with the proposal she craved, and some mythical rival hovering in the shadows had been calculated to get him moving sooner rather than later.

  ‘Coming out here was totally the best thing you could have done,’ she said, rubbing his arm. ‘The change of scene will help give you perspective and the sunshine will make you feel better.’

  He shrugged his eyebrows doubtfully. ‘I was nervous about not overseeing the work myself anyway.’

  ‘Control freak,’ she teased.

  He looked at her, an anxious look in his eyes. ‘How’s it going with Gabriel?’

  Clem paused. ‘As you predicted.’

  He winced apologetically. ‘I . . . I was wasted.’

  ‘But right. Let’s face it, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen.’

  They were quiet for a moment and she knew he was worrying about the implications on the commission if – and when – the relationship foundered.

  ‘How’s Stella? Showing yet?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘She was showing before she was pregnant!’ Tom chuckled.

  ‘She said the morning sickness has really kicked in now.’ Clem sighed. ‘I hate not being around for her.’

  ‘Listen, if there’s one thing Stella’s used to, it’s throwing up in the morning,’ Tom replied with his trademark grin. ‘Besides, Mercy’s looking after her. She’s helping out on the stall a lot; the days are too long out there for Stella at the moment, especially when she’s face first in a bucket.’

  ‘Nicely put. Sensitive, bro.’

  He grinned, kicking the floor again. ‘I apologized to Mercy, by the way. Clover twisted everything so much that . . . Well, anyway, I gave her a pay rise to make up for it. We’re mates now, although she doesn’t do the “cleaning in her bra thing” with me.’

  ‘Probably just as well,’ Clem giggled.

  He jabbed a thumb to his chest. ‘Listen, I know where the thermostat is. I make sure it’s turned down.’

  They laughed as the sound of Chad leading the workmen through the house interrupted them.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked, wishing she could have her brother all to her herself for a bit longer, but there was no spare room in the folly, and she could hardly ask Gabriel to move back to the Splendido again.

  ‘A little hotel in Santa Margherita, it’s basic but fine. It was all I could get
at such short notice.’

  ‘Um, talking of hotels . . . I take it you got my message about helping Chiara with her hotel, too?’ She felt nervous bringing it up, and unsure about telling him it was being funded with the money from the flash sale. Technically he had rejected it all, but passions had cooled since then. Had he changed his mind? Did he assume it was still his? She could never explain why she was gifting such a colossal sum to her pen pal and she didn’t want to bring all that up now and risk souring their reconciliation.

  ‘Yes, Simon mentioned it. I haven’t seen any orders come in yet, though.’

  Clem rolled her eyes. ‘Ugh, that’s because she’s a nightmare to work with! She won’t commit to anything. I think, deep down, she actually wants the hotel to fail. She’s struggling to keep up as it is, even without all these big changes.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Her heart’s just not in it.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to introduce us. Stella said she’s great. It’ll be nice to meet her at last. I don’t know how I never met her the first time.’

  ‘You were in Argentina on your gap year when she came over, remember?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He smiled at her fondly. ‘It amazes me that you two have kept in contact all this time. My pen pal went AWOL on me. Shame, really, as he was a good bloke. D’you remember him? We got on like a house on fire.’

  Clem gave a tiny nod, a quiet fear beginning to creep up her nervous system.

  Tom looked pensive as the memory took hold. ‘Actually, I ought to see if he’s still in the area while I’m here. I hadn’t thought about that. I mean, he lived in the next village and I bet everyone knows everyone here, don’t they?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ she murmured.

  ‘Tch, what was his name?’ he mused, frowning. ‘Agh. It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

  ‘Rafa.’ Her voice was tiny.

  ‘That’s it!’ Tom said, clicking his fingers. ‘Rafaello Vicenzo. Of course! How could I forget?’